Japan Charts: Koei's Samurai Warriors 2 tops the ranking
PS2 action title Samurai Warriors 2, the sequel to Koei's 2005 expansion of the hugely successful Dynasty Warriors franchise which introduced historical elements from Japan's famous Warring States era, has entered the Japanese charts at number one this week.
Over 327,000 units of the new game were sold, according to figures from Media Create, representing yet another successful launch for a series which has produced a string of hits for publisher Koei both in its native territory and abroad.
Elsewhere in this week's Japanese chart, which covers the seven days up to February 26th, there were also strong sales of over 100,000 units for Konami's latest PS2 RPG, Suikoden V, and Nippon Ichi's DeathGaia 2, which were at numbers two and three respectively.
Nintendo's latest brain training software, More DS Training For Adults, was at number four this week, with sales of nearly 65,000 units bringing total sales for the game to almost 1.35 million units.
The game was the top-ranked DS title in the top ten, leading a group of three titles which also included Animal Crossing Wild World (No.5), English DS Training For Adults (No.8) and the original DS Training For Adults (No.9).
Between them, the three DS Training For Adults titles have now sold almost 3.5 million units in Japan alone, while another similar title, Gentle Brain Exercises, has also sold over a million units.
The remainder of the chart sees Capcom's PS2 RPG title Monster Hunter 2 coming in at number six, sole PSP entry Initial D Street Stage (the latest in Sega's popular racing franchise Initial D) at number seven, and Interchannel's PS2 dating game Clannad at number 10.
In hardware terms, the DS leads the ranking, with over 47,000 units sold compared with just under 32,000 for its closest rival, the PSP - a figure achieved in spite of the imminent launch of the redesigned DS hardware, DS Lite.
So far this year the DS has sold over 450,000 units in Japan despite the announcement of the redesign and ongoing stock shortages, and the Nintendo console continues to build its impressive market lead over Sony's handheld - which has sold around 370,000 units in the same space of time.
Xbox 360, however, appears to have totally collapsed in the marketplace, with only 1200 units selling during the week - contributing to a dismal year-to-date total of just 25,000 units sold, lower than even the GameCube, which has managed to sell 34,000 units so far this year.